The Trials of Inquisitor Gorsch
by ikhan11
Summary: The story of my Inquisitor, also based on games. actually quite good.... even though i say so myself, please review
1. Training Ends

Okay, this is my first major fic.  
  
It's the ongoing story of my Inquisitor in a campaign, so please, if the plot seems a little odd, I'm trying, but I don't have control over everyone's characters. Sometimes I feel I have no control over Gorsch…  
  
But that's another story.  
  
Anyway, please enjoy, review if you like, I would appreciate it. I have a previous humorous fic which fits into this one, between chapters 1 and 2. It's called Picking up Harry, a little down the previous page. I've parodied my own Fic. I've just realised how weird that is. (  
  
Disclaimer; You know how it goes, I don't own, yadyadayada…….  
  
Inquisitor Acolyte Gorsch stood motionless before the podium on which sat the high Inquisitor Lords who were set to evaluate him.  
  
A robed and deeply cowled figure on the right of the podium spoke. It did so with a voice that half synthesised, and which seemed to emanate from it's neck:  
  
"The...Device into which you were placed is...to some degree untested. It is a glorious relic from the dark age of technology, not fully understood by any mortal, and the more...detrimental effects were largely unforeseen." The figure's habit of using overlong sentences, unencumbered as he was by breathing, was enough to make many unsettled. It would take much more to shake Gorsch. "We have deemed it necessary to...suspend its use," the hood continued, "Until further tests can confirm its safety."  
  
Gorsch stared straight into where he thought the eyes of the inquisitor would be, although all that could be seen, even by his augmented vision, were vague shapes of tubes and wires.  
  
A mention of the simulation machine, Gorsch's hand twitched towards his head, where the skin had not healed over the freshly inserted metal plates.  
  
"Yes, it appears the reality inside the machine is closely linked to our own." This voice was much more human, and a voice used to being obeyed. "The accident was...unfortunate."  
  
Memories flashed of awaking in agony, of being blinded by light and his own blood running freely into his eyes. "Other than that, the program went marvellously. Saving of course, your eventual failure and incapacitation."  
  
The words of Inquisitor lord Kryptman were, of course, true, but Gorsch could hear the unspoken challenge in them.  
  
"I was disappointed by the events of the ambush in the tomb of the techno magi. It could be said that your almost fanatical attack on Inquisitor Eisenhorn was foolish." Kryptman was being rhetorical as Gorsch was forbidden to speak in this place, at this time.  
  
"I must, to some point disagree" Another figure leant into the half light of the chamber, his bionic eye glinting. This man, as surely he must be, was massively framed, and dressed in heavy black and gold robes covered in heraldic devices. His voice was booming, and although he spoke quietly, his speech filled the room.  
  
"To die in the defence of the Emperor-"  
  
"And an STC Database."  
  
"-From a heretic is hardly a failure. It is better to die for the Emperor than to live for yourself. The blood of Martyrs is the seed of the Imperium" Tyrus was an imposing figure, even without the hulking armour he wore when expecting resistance.  
  
"Speaking of heretics, the part was well played by Inquisitor Eisenhorn. Thank you, most esteemed colleague." Kryptman nodded to Eisenhorn, who nodded in return, turned and left. The sound proof door shut behind him with barely a whisper  
  
"The time has come to make our decision," Tyrus said after a moments pause. "Do we grant the full title of Inquisitor on Acolyte Gorsch? My vote is Affirmative. Lord Inquisitor Falkar?"  
  
After a split second pause, the hood nodded; Yes.  
  
"Lord Kryptman?" The senior inquisitor sat in the centre of the podium looked down into Gorsch's remaining eye. A unanimous vote was needed for Gorsch to obtain the rank of Inquisitor. Kryptman seemed to be considering Gorsch, deeply, and it seemed for the first time. After a few seconds which seemed to stretch for hours, Kryptman breathed in deeply and said simply:  
  
"Yes."  
  
Tyrus rose, the hem of his robes brushing the floor. Deceptively quick for a man so big, he crossed to an alcove and removed something from it that shone dully in the half light. He stepped next to Gorsch, not more than a few inches taller, but seemingly twice as wide as the newly raised Inquisitor.  
  
"We now bestow on you the rank of Inquisitor in the Holy Order of his Imperial Majesty's Inquisitors, and all the responsibilities and duties pertaining to it." Opening the small metal case he had carried across the room, he removed a gold coloured plaque on a sturdy chain. Tyrus laid this in Gorsch's hand, and the former acolyte's fist closed slowly around it, the chain hanging over the back of his hand.  
  
Kryptman spoke up again;  
  
"We charge you to protect those unable to do so from the dangers of the galaxy."  
  
"To Know, and save the blissfully Ignorant."  
  
"To move among the Imperium like an avenging shadow, striking down the enemies of humanity." finished Tyrus.  
  
Inquisitor Gorsch turned and walked toward the door, his metal soled boots clicking on the marble floor, feeling the eyes of the other Inquisitors on the back of his head.  
  
Waiting outside for him was Barbaretta, and surprisingly Inquisitor Eisenhorn, and as Gorsch looked into his lined face, Gorsch wondered, not for the first time just how much Eisenhorn knew about the link between the machine reality and this one, and the results of any 'accidents'.  
  
"Inquisitor Gorsch, I trust that your ascension to the rank of Inquisitor brings you more wisdom than you had previously." The room was entirely sound proof. "The acts you perceived me performing in the machine were false, and I hope you will not judge me on them. You strike me as a man likely to hold a grudge most vehemently. If you do, I must warn you, I do not take kindly to others prying into my business. Good day." Eisenhorn glanced at Barbaretta as he left the corridor, dismissing her from his mind. She bristled at this and turned to Gorsch noticing the plaque on the chain around his neck.  
  
"Congratulations, my lord, on-" She stopped and paled as she met his gaze.  
  
"Is there something wrong, Barbaretta?"  
  
"N-No my lord, nothing is wrong."  
  
"Good. Come, the offices of my Ordo will be waiting to Indoctrine me into their ranks. I assume you wish to visit the city near the Citadel? It has been some time since we were on an inhabited world."  
  
"That would be most agreeable my lord." Gorsch nodded, and the enforcer strode off, her cyber-mastiff clicking along beside her on the smooth floor.  
  
Gorsch continued to walk the corridors of the citadel, until he came to an ornate archway, inscribed over the top with; Ordo Malleus.  
  
Barbaretta hurried toward the inquisitorial shuttle for a change of clothes. She had a feeling her enforcer uniform would not go down well in the large city. Ordering her mastiff to stay in the room she slipped several concealed weapons in and around her non-descript clothes. This was, strictly speaking, illegal, but she could produce her enforcer ID, and besides Gorsch could get her out of any trouble.  
  
She suppressed a shudder as she thought of her employer. In her years as an enforcer she had seen many horrible sights, and had stared into the eyes of any number of crazed chainsaw wielding lunatics, but never before had she seen such eyes as on Gorsch just now. His bionic eye was bad enough, a blank blue orb, but it was his real eye that was the worst. An eye that bored straight into you, an eye that seared, an eye so full of anger and desire for vengeance and justice that it had turned her spine cold.  
  
Closing the door of the shuttle, she hurried to catch a nearby mag- lift train into the city.  
  
His cane clicking loudly on the marble flooring, Eisenhorn considered his options. The man had the eyes of a zealot, and now that he was an inquisitor, he would prove very difficult to have simply disappeared.  
  
It seemed Inquisitor Gorsch was going to become a problem, but Eisenhorn had overcome many problems in the past. 


	2. A Contemplative Drink

A contemplative drink  
  
Gorsch paced the room impatiently, his metal shod feet stumping onto the ground with unnecessary force.  
  
"Are you sure you've picked up no trace of them?"  
  
The space marine force commander regarded the Inquisitor placidly, his power armoured body towering over the normal sized Gorsch.  
  
"Yes, my lord." his great voice proclaimed, filling the small room. Small that is, for a space marine strike cruiser, the ceiling being a mere ten feet from the floor. Force Commander Argus had ducked slightly though the doorway, for he was reckoned large even among his superhuman brethren.  
  
"Could your sensor men have made a mistake?" The red armoured figure stared coldly at Gorsch for a fraction of a second before answering:  
  
"We are Adeptus Astartes"  
  
This of course was right. Gorsch had known about them for as long as he could remember, in the past. Armoured giants, become more than human, able to crush men in their bare hands, fighting for humanity in the galaxy. They were unseen, of course, but protectors. But the past was a different place, a place with locked doors, and blood running under them...  
  
Gorsch shook his head. When he had become apprenticed, he began to learn more under his Inquisitor master, and had listened with a little of his childhood wonder as he heard of the organs they had implanted; including a second heart, a third lung, a second stomach, and one which allowed him to go without sleep. They had accelerated muscle growth and skeletal hardening, their chests becoming a fused box, rather than a cage of ribs.  
  
They also had what they called the emperors ward, a carapace inserted under the skin which enabled them to control the huge five-inch plasteel and ceramite armour that they wore over their entire body, moving it with thought, it augmenting their strength and turning them into machines of destruction.  
  
Gorsch realized he had been staring out of the port hole at the planet under them in silence.  
  
"Yes, of course, I'm sorry." It came to him that this was not a very Inquisitorial thing to say, and continued; "You may go."  
  
"As you wish." The Blood angel commander turned on his heel, the thick golden reward bands hanging from his shoulders brushing against the double headed Imperial Eagle on his massive chest plate. He strode away, boots echoing loudly down the empty corridor.  
  
Gorsch thumped his fist against the clear plasteel in the porthole in frustration. Eisenhorn had escaped his grasp yet again. He had not expected to come across him again so soon, but Gorsch was glad of the opportunity. He had been given 'instructions' to chase an inquisitor who apparently had some valuable artefact from the dark age of technology.  
  
Gorsch had not been allowed to know his name, intention, orientation or destination, but had had to chase him down anyway. Eventually Gorsch had chased his large shuttle to the Andromeda sector and had given chase in his personal shuttle, the weapons on the sword frigate he had commandeered being too powerful. Shooting them down over the planet Ichvar IV had been luck, as Gorsch had not relished the thought of boarding an unknown craft in the void.  
  
His instincts had told him to land straight away, instead of waiting for backup from the Sword as Barbaretta had suggested. A good thing he had listened to himself, as when he boarded the craft what had he found but the damn assassins whom Eisenhorn employed.  
  
As he thought of the assassins his hand reached toward the top of his head where the skin still hurt as it grew around the plates. He forced his hand back down to his side.  
  
The assassins being there could only mean one thing, Eisenhorn. Gorsch had been about to track him down and make him pay, but a warning had gone off about the plasma core injectors about to critically overload, and he had to leave the area sharpish. Firing a few passing shots into the doorway of the ship, he had hit one of the lithely somersaulting shapes as he raced back toward his own shuttle.  
  
His sensors had detected another shuttle in the area, and Gorsch had relished the chance of catching the two inquisitors in an inferior transport, but the shuttle had chosen that moment to explode in a fiery dome that spread over his shuttle, knocking out all communication and steering. Even manual steering was unavailable, and Gorsch had been forced to wait out the hasty repairs by their technician, unable even to contact the Sword and tell the Commodore to track or follow any shuttles that leave.  
  
By the time they got back to the sword, Gorsch's quarry was long gone, and there was left only a faint warp signature, which had immediately set to following it.  
  
Gorsch tracked down the corridor toward on of the docking bays. On his way he passed a space marine sanctum with barred doors, but a marine was just entering, and as he passed, Gorsch glimpsed a gigantic stone statue, at least forty foot high of a robed man with huge outstretched wings holding a chalice. This statue was in place of the usual statue of the emperor, and as the door slammed Gorsch remembered how he had heard that space marines often honoured their primarch on a par with the emperor. He considered reporting this to the Ordo Hereticus on holy terra, but remembering the reputation that the blood angels have, and the rumours of the Black Rage and Red Thirst, Gorsch decided to keep quiet about this. Very quiet.  
  
Entering the massive airlock to the docking-bay doors with a group of chapter surfs, Gorsch looked up again in wonder at the huge shapes, lost into the shadows above him. Stepping over huge cables he thought about how much firepower there was on each thunderhawk gunship, both with armour and bombs, it was comparable to many tanks, and whilst not as quick or manoeuvrable as Imperial fighters, they had enough armour to make a mockery of many attacks thrown at them. Coupled with this was their ability to transport a third of a space marine company, including walkers, tanks and speeders. Many non-marines had seen thunderhawks, but not many lived to tell of them.  
  
At the end of the line of five of the military super-craft was Gorsch's own shuttle, dwarfed by the gunships, it was small but it packed a punch.  
  
He walked up the gangplank and to the mess. Barbaretta and Harkor were playing cards with the ship's technician, Tomas, on the big central table, but Gorsch crossed the room to pour himself a glass of Frinlolian brandy, and sat down on his own to think of what had happened to get him on this strike cruiser.  
  
The sword frigate had chased Eisenhorn's shuttle to an Inquisitorial base on Galthamor primus, and Gorsch had requisited an long forgotten razorback, it had taken him some time to find a suitable vehicle, but it was neccesay because he knew that the base would be armed and he needed a fair amout of security, well provided by the armoured hull of the tank.  
  
He had arrived on the scene, and had seen one of the damnable assassins duck into a corrugated steel hanger. A huge lance of energy had shot out of the lascannon mounted on the razorback, but the weapon was aged, as was the ammunition, and Harkor was hardly used to firing anti-armour weapons from the back of a moving tank. As a result, the beam missed the assassin by inched as she vaulted into the hanger, but the shockwave of compressed air had ripped a sizable chunk of her arm out, anyway.  
  
Barbaretta had let her cyber mastiff out of the swinging side door, and it had leapt off in pursuit. Gorsch could remember the self satisfied expression as she saw the assassin bitten in the head and stunned through the dog's eyes.  
  
Then Gorsch had received a call from a previously unknown Inquisitor, who was somewhere in the compound, but he was reluctant to reveal his exact position. This made Gorsch suspicious, but then, Gorsch was always suspicious. Of everyone.  
  
Those suspicions largely evaporated after that though, when Eisenhorn rode out on an attack bike of all things, with the profusely bleeding assassin sitting in the gunner seat. This other Inquisitor, who called himself Caran, had projected his voice over the intercom system, admonishing Eisenhorn about some transaction that had gone awry. Gorsch had guessed that it was the artefact they had been arguing over, but Gorsch distinctly heard the words "alien flesh" over the open intercom, and he found himself yet again one step behind Eisenhorn. Caran promptly gunned Eisenhorn down with automated turrets in Eisenhorn's own base. All that was left was a smoking wreck, and the two passengers looking confused and injured.  
  
Gorsch was now thoroughly confused, and sought a way to contain the Inquisitors, and find out just what in the name of the Holy Emperor was going on. He had espied the shuttle sitting on the landing pad. Realising both of the Inquisitors had escaped on this very transport from Ichvar; he had ordered Harry to blow it to smithereens. Harry, more used to pistols than Space Marine heavy weaponry, only managed to blow off the GCS from the top of the shuttle, partially immobilizing it, and rendering it silent.  
  
Seeing Eisenhorn struggling from the wreckage, he had longed to go in for the kill… but a warning klaxon had sounded and Gorsch was forced to retreat. He had picked up a transmission from the blood angels, who had offered to send down a transport to pick him up. Naturally he accepted, as he was anxious to be away from this place when the missiles hit. He had decided to leave Eisenhorn to his fate, although instant vaporisation was too good for him. It was a risk, leaving him, but one that Gorsch had had to take.  
  
To his amazement, two thunderhawks had landed, or rather hovered. One, much scarred and bitten, was in the deep red of the Blood Angels, the other a pristine medium green, with black and white decals inscribed with stylised "A"'s . Study of Imperial records told Gorsch that these were the Aurora chapter, famous for surgical strikes, and avoidance of unnecessary combat. This second 'Hawk had hovered over what Gorsch had then assumed to be the command bunker, and he saw four shadowy figures running up an access ramp. He was too busy gunning the tank forward to notice anything in too much detail. The incandescent landing thrusters had burned purple after images into the back of Gorsch's biological eye, and his bionic Infrascanner had momentarily blacked out. He trundled the ancient tank into the back hatch of the fighter-bomber and collapsed at the controls, as both of the thunderhawks streaked off in different directions.  
  
Minutes after they boosted away from the compound, the missiles hit, turning the Inquisitorial base into a mile wide crater.  
  
Gorsch had watched with grim satisfaction at the destruction of the base, but he had had a horrible twisting feeling that he had not seen the last of Eisenhorn.  
  
Back in the here and now, Gorsch got up to get himself another brandy, and turned at a flicker of movement. There was a small mirror hanging from a slit in the ceiling behind Harry and Barbaretta, and Gorsch noticed it moved in time with Tomas' left hand. Tomas had won a considerable amount more than the enforcer and the gunslinger together. In one smooth motion, Gorsch turned, drew his stubber, and blew the mirror apart, shattering his own image into a thousand pieces.  
  
The three card players jumped, and recognized what was happening. Tomas watched with a nervous smile while his opponents slowly stood up, gathered up all their lost money and left the room, looking at him ominously.  
  
Gorsch stood staring, stubber in hand, at the broken frame, pieces of mirror still clinging to it.  
  
His reverie was interrupted when the unmistakable voice of Captain Argus boomed over the intercom.  
  
"Lord Gorsch, the sensors have picked up a warp space anomaly, somewhat similar to a warp storm when it covers a planet. It is very small, and it blocked our larger more general sensor sweeps. We have ascertained that it leads off in a straight trajectory. It does not appear natural, if anything of the warp can be described as so." Gorsch was sure he heard the man spit.  
  
"Eisenhorn." Gorsch almost growled the word.  
  
"That would seem the most logical explanation"  
  
"Set course for the direction the…anomaly has taken," Gorsch replied, "and inform me of any developments. I will be in my quarters praying."  
  
"Acknowledged." was the simple reply.  
  
Gorsch strode from the room, leaving a very relieved Technician to clean up the shards of mirror left on the floor. 


	3. Escape, and a Malevolant Shield

Half seen daemons gibbered around him, on the edge of sight, on the edge of sanity…  
  
Hands clawed for him, desperate for his life force, but Eisenhorn had trained for many years, hardening his mind until it was as easy to get into as a sphere if steel.  
  
Sweat broke out on his forehead as he concentrated on keeping the miniature maelstrom in place, meters from the hull of the small ship he had requisited.  
  
The assassins Severina and Sevora stared transfixed out of the porthole a few feet from Eisenhorn, their minds on past battles where beasts not that different to ones they saw assailed their employers in daemon hosts. Their current employer had one in his retinue, in fact, and it took a lot to unnerve the sisters, but the swirling cavorting deamons in the void chilled them.  
  
Eisenhorn glanced at the figure hunched over the controls, Muttering and swearing.  
  
"Devlan, do not worry yourself, that the instrumentation shows nothing, I am guiding the ship." No sign of strain was in his voice, low and gravely, and used to giving orders. "We are quite safe."  
  
If those fools in the inquisition would only listen, he could tell them how useful the power of the warp could be, but the pathetic fools wouldn't accept anything they hadn't been doing for the last five thousand years.  
  
"Where are we headed?" Devlan replied with a question, not unusual among suspicious outlaws.  
  
"Another supply base, this one away from prying eyes, and missile silos." And Gorsch, he added silently. That maniac's been chasing me for weeks, and now he knows about Caran. I need to re group and end his chasing me. Forever.  
  
The ship drifted on into the void, leaving only silently screaming daemons in its path. 


	4. Choices, and Amniotic Fluid

Caran strolled down the corridor of the ship, and thought about his departure from the amity of Inquisitor Eisenhorn. After Eisenhorn lying and tricking him, it seemed only fitting for Caran to remove his assets, and gun him down in his own base, using his own turrets.  
  
And then there was Gorsch. The furious young Inquisitor had come as quite a surprise to Caran, and had revealed some very important facts about Eisenhorn that he was glad for knowing. Such a fanatical young man would prove useful, if a sufficient truce and companionship could be achieved.  
  
Caran smiled at the irony of their method of departure from Eisenhorn's base. The young enthusiast had been transported out by the equally enthusiastic Blood Angels, whereas Caran himself boarded the tactically driven Aurora chapter gunship very calmly by the main loading ramp.  
  
Coming to a halt, he punched a number, and entered a room. Caran stood in front of the foot-wide tube filled with clear amniotic fluid. In it was the source of discord between himself and Eisenhorn. The shape of the container and the viscous fluid masked to true appearance of the alien arm, but the bone, muscle, sinew and fingers could clearly be seen. As could the opposable thumb.  
  
A vid-screen next to the tank showed a representation of the arm, and data and statistics flashing up in gothic. Cruftan stood peering at it through mechanical eyes, his mechanendrites waving hypnotically.  
  
"What do you make of it?" the Inquisitor asked his long-term associate.  
  
"This is unlike what I have seen before," he replied in a voice overlaid with mechanical synthesisers, "This equipment is quite poor."  
  
"Indeed it would be, Magos, the Adeptus Astartes have photographic memories of the information they are taught, and have no need to dissect captured enemies."  
  
The magos nodded his agreement, but added:  
  
"Still, it will be interesting to inspect this sample under a state of the art set of the equipment."  
  
Caran smiled a rare smile, and strode from the doorway. What to do now? Eisenhorn had used some trick to escape, and Gorsch, after scanning the planet for some time, had bolted in a seemingly random direction. Caran could follow him, or he could return to HQ and receive a new assignment.  
  
Seeing sergeant Tririon, his imperial guard bodyguard in the hallway, Caran asked his opinion, as a form of amusement in the long hours of space travel.  
  
"Well," replied Tririon, scratching his unshaven chin, "I reckon we stay hot on what we got, and that's this boy. But don't follow too close, or you might just find you've stepped on a grakja's tail."  
  
"Ah, my dear Tririon, what would I do without you?"  
  
Buy another forty, exactly the same he answered himself silently as he strolled down the corridor. 


	5. Up on the Roof

Slick sprinted to the edge, leapt the four foot gap, twisted and fired two shots straight his assailants head. The building on which he had just stood, however shook as an explosion damaged its base, an effect of the massive civil uprising in the hive. The other gunslinger wobbled even as Slick twisted. Subsequently, one shot went wide, and the other only grazed the head. Slick hit the clear topped building flat on his back, slid a foot, and halted. He held the guns directly pointing at the head and chest of his opponent. Unfortunately, this stance was mirrored by the man on the building opposite.  
  
Harry breathed deeply and rapidly, but kept his pistols aimed rock steady at the man lying prone on the building opposite, staring down the barrels of two of the most famous guns in this sector. Slick Devlan's pistols. Gorsch and Barbaretta were several buildings along by now, chasing the other members of Eisenhorn's warband. He was alone, with a perfect chance to escape Gorsch's clutches, but he couldn't.  
  
Typical, thought Devlan, a Mexican standoff is all I need. Neither of us can shoot, he can't jump over, I can't get up. Devlan breathed slowly, blinked sporadically. A large explosion lit up the area, and the buildings shook again. By the light of the explosion, Devlan could clearly see his opponent, and found that it was Dirty Harry Skaldan. He was fast making a reputation for himself as a gunfighter, but he got into mob trouble and disappeared. Slick had assumed he had been killed, but now he could see that Harry had succumbed to the same fate as himself, forced to follow an inquisitor round, doing the dirty work.  
  
Harry was getting nervous. Blood from the cut on his head was running dangerously close to his eye, and the building whose roof he was standing on was swaying too much. He took a deep breath and was about to leap sideways to the protection of some ventilation shafts that he could see from the corner of his eye, but he heard a shotgun fire several rooftops away. The wind tried to snatch the sound away, but the sound was unmistakable. That must have been Barbaretta, thought Harry, it's her favourite weapon. With no obvious sounds of rescue heading this way, Harry was about to jump again, when a shuttle seemed to appear out of nowhere, its landing thrusters glowing so bright that Slick was forced to shut his eyes, and he dived blindly, hoping that Slick was in no position to blow him away.  
  
He landed awkwardly on the rockrete roof, bruising his shoulder, but looked up just in time to see Slick being bundled into the shuttle like so much sythcorn.  
  
Harry was left blinking with purple after-images as the shuttle sped away.  
  
Eisenhorn leapt the gap, his ancient legs still supporting him well. Ahead he could see the assassin sisters lithely stepping over six foot gaps that dropped hundreds of meters below to the riots Eisenhorn had fermented.  
  
The concussive blast of the riot shotgun hit him a split second before he heard the noise and was his by the pellets in his legs. He stumbled a foot from the edge, but a lot of the force had been absorbed by the callipers on his legs. He saw the assassins turn, and he motioned for Severina to come and help him. He would never make it over now, and bloody Gorsch was much too close for comfort. He took a faltering step and leaned on the leather clad woman. He motioned for her to continue.  
  
Seeing his quarry stumble, Gorsch sprinted to the edge of the building, and leapt with a massive roar, his robes flying out behind him. The horrible void below sucked at him for a moment, but Gorsch was concentrating too hard on his foe, now so close at hand, after weeks of chasing and hunting. A flicker of metal few past his head.  
  
Gorsch swung with all his might, his fury lending him the strength of a space marine. The glowing sword inscribed an incandescent blue arc in the air, its disruption field sparking wildly.  
  
Eisenhorn turned his head, and time seemed to slow for Gorsch. On Eisenhorn's face was a look of fear, and anger, but also one of complacency and calm assurance that enraged Gorsch even further, if that was possible.  
  
The universe seemed to catch up, and time flowed back in.  
  
The shining power-sword struck Eisenhorn at the jaw line, and cleaved through his head like a stick through water. As the disruption field fount Eisenhorn's skull, it blew his cranium apart on a shower of blood, grey matter and skull pieces that landed all over Gorsch, Eisenhorn and the assassin.  
  
Gorsch landed on the building, a hand going to the floor to steady himself on the now slick roof.  
  
Eisenhorn's now headless body slumped to the ground in front of Gorsch, fingers twitching. Gorsch straightened, and his gaze met that of the assassin.  
  
Severina stood, if not shocked, then very surprised, staring at the body of her employer as it slumped to the ground. She looked up at the man who had blown the Inquisitor's head apart, and her hand tightened on the handle of her poisoned sword. His clothes were covered in blood and grey tissue, and his feet crunched pieces of skull beneath their metal soles.  
  
Here and her sister had defeated this man once before, they could do it again. That had been a simulation, though, albeit a realistic one. He looked up, and his eyes gaze met hers.  
  
She fled as quickly as possible.  
  
Gorsch wanted to chase the assassin, but a part of him told him that that would not be a good idea.  
  
The decision was taken away from him, though when a shuttle appeared over head. He saw one of Eisenhorn's previous minions bundled away, and as it turned, Gorsch caught a glimpse of a man stood in the open doorway.  
  
He was tall, about six feet, with dark hair touched at the side by white. He wore a large breastplate and robes, a long slender sword at his side. He appeared to be studying Gorsch, and the situation below.  
  
He made eye contact with Gorsch, and there seemed something there, a mutual agreement or parallel of purpose. He nodded slightly, and then motioned behind him, and the shuttle flew over the burning roof tops, and away.  
  
Gorsch knelt and picked up the largest piece of skull he could find. It was about as large as his hand and incorporated part of the eye socket.  
  
He turned and spoke to Barbaretta and the went back in the direction of where they had left Harry. 


	6. Cheated of Vengeance

Static crackled over the Vox-com, as Gorsch strained to pick out what Caran was saying.  
  
"…engaged...fire fight with imperial guard, we are uninjured, but…pursued…..unsure…--" The signal cut out, and Gorsch quickly scanned through the wavebands until he found the signal again.  
  
"…repeat, pursued, trapped…tunnels, sector 221-g, require immea…. Eis- "  
  
There was the sound of gunfire, and the signal cut out again. By this time, Gorsch was running, together with Barbaretta towards the stairs, Harry close behind.  
  
Gorsch thundered round the corridor, his heavy footfalls setting the crude electro-bulbs in the roof above him swinging. He had been running solidly for twenty minutes, there being no other way down to the tunnels under the fledgling hive. He could hear Harry panting, falling behind, and even Barbaretta sounded strained. Gorsch continued resolutely. Nearing the part of the tunnels Caran had described, he slowed to take stock of the situation. Allowing the others to catch up, he could distinctly hear the zzip of lasguns and, for some reason, a high pitched squeaking. He signalled silently to Barbaretta and Harry to flank him when he turned the corner.  
  
Harry kept to his left, staying flat to the uneven surface of the rock corridor. As Gorsch stepped out into the corridor, stubber at the ready, Barbaretta threw herself in a roll across the width of the corridor, ending with her shield propped in front of her, shotgun at the ready. The cyber-mastiff trotted sedately after her.  
  
Gorsch took a second to analyse the situation, a method Caran had taught him. Two largish imperial guard were covering the retreat of civilians, possibly mechanics or scientists carrying bulky and expensive looking equipment out of a room about twenty yards down the corridor.  
  
Gorsch gave the order to fire, Harry giving "suppression" fire, or maybe just missing. Gorsch himself fired in short bursts at Caran's assailants, firing at legs and arms. Incapacitate, but don't kill, leave some for questioning. Another method Caran had taught him.  
  
They had taken the Guard by surprise, and the suppression fire kept them pinned for a moment. Then a shape appeared behind them, urging them to attack it seemed, and they took up firing positions.  
  
Gorsch focused in on the figure, his bionic eye whirring, and it came into full focus.  
  
It was Eisenhorn, very much alive.  
  
Standing there, right in front of him.  
  
Time slowed, and Gorsch saw Eisenhorn turn his head in his direction, before meeting his gaze, and leaving, via another corridor  
  
A red mist descended over Gorsch's vision. He fired insanely, bellowing a shout of incomprehensible rage. The guardsmen danced grotesquely as Gorsch's bullets unerringly found their mark in heads, chests, and abdomens as lasfire reflected from Barbaretta's shield, and Gorsch's breastplate. It burned across the walls, and struck the inquisitor in the thigh. He paid it no mind, and continued to fill the guardsmen with holes.  
  
Barbaretta ducked behind her shield, and unleashed her dog. Harry stayed behind the wall, occasionally firing back. Gorsch made no move towards safety, his mouth open in a roar that could be heard over the gunfire.  
  
Eventually, Gorsch became aware that he had fired all his bullets, the stubber making a hollow clicking sound.  
  
Nothing moved at the other end of the corridor, except a lone overhead light, swinging wildly. Grim patterns of dark red blood spattered the rough wall where the guardsmen had been standing. The smell of blood and hot metal in the still cavern filled his senses, the only sound being his teeth grinding.  
  
"My-my lord..?" Barbaretta's voice seemed to come from very far away, although he knew she was standing next to him.  
  
He closed his eyes, and there, lit up on the back of his mind, was Eisenhorn, calmly walking away  
  
Gorsch fell to his knees and passed out.  
  
Barbaretta hesitated outside the door to Gorsch's personal chamber, took a deep breath, steadied herself, and knocked.  
  
There was a moment of silence, and then Gorsch answered from inside:  
  
"Yes." There was no inflection in the voice, no tone change.  
  
It had been three days since the day in the corridors under the hive city, three days Gorsch had been sealed in his chamber after he had regained consciousness. He had neither eaten nor drank, as far as Barbaretta knew, and any inquiry had been savagely rebuffed, to put it mildly.  
  
She swallowed, and entered the room.  
  
The sparse furniture in the room, a bed, a washstand, a weapons rack, had all been reduced to splinters. The crackling blue powersword stood buried a foot in the floor.  
  
Behind it was Gorsch. He sat cross-legged on the floor, reading the large holy tome he customarily carried open across his knees.  
  
Barbaretta noticed a trail of blood on the floor, ranging from old and congealed up to fresh and shining. The trail ran up to Gorsch's right hand, where he had his fist clenched tightly around a white flat shard of bone. The shade was mirrored by the skin around his knuckles.  
  
As she watched, a drop formed and dripped noiselessly into the pool on the floor, partially soaked up by Gorsch's robes.  
  
"Why have you disturbed me?" Again, no inflection, no tone.  
  
"Inquisitor Caran wishes to see you." Gorsch did not answer. "He is in the waiting chamber." She continued, when no answer seemed forthcoming.  
  
Gorsch looked up from the tome. She shied away from looking at his eyes.  
  
Gorsch closed the book, and stood. Another drip fell to the floor. He seemed to notice the piece of bone for the first time. He opened his hand exposing the fragment. Across it was burned the word 'Heretic', almost obscured by dried blood. The movement of his fingers sent more blood gushing, pattering on the floor at his feet.  
  
"It is time to go." He dropped the skull fragment on the floor, and stood on it, crushing it. 


	7. Caran's Report

+++++transmitted………………………….………………………..….SpielmanIV+++++  
  
+++++received………...………………...........................encoded security LV   
  
date……………….……………….…………………………..2645999.M41+++++  
  
+++++telepathic duct..………………….…………..…astropath-terminus alkanine+++++  
  
+++++ref:…………………….…….........................Inq.Ca.o1375639/ahereticus35+++ ++  
  
+++++author……….………………….…………………………. =I=Caran006.49+++++  
  
+++++though for the day………………..…….death is the servant of the righteous+++++  
  
My lords  
  
By now you will have received my report on the apparent resurrection of the former Inquisitor Eisenhorn, and his 'obtaining' of cloning equipment from Spielman IV. It is obvious now that this was the reason he had stirred the rebellion, and his subsequent obliteration by my colleague Inquisitor Gorsch was merely fateful timing.  
  
Gorsch is, in fact the reason for this communiqué. In the three months since our meeting, and the formation of our shaky alliance, as you know, I have been working on Gorsch. At first the only reason he approached me was or mutual hatred of the formerly deceased Eisenhorn. Since our subsequent posting to subdue this rebellion, Gorsch and I have been working in tandem. I, in my usual fashion, moving unobtrusively, learning information, and identifying factions. Gorsch was then dispatched to stamp out these factions. Forcibly.  
  
During our time, I have spoken with him often, guiding him, bringing him to a more non-confrontational viewpoint. He started taking out surgical strikes on rebellion HQ, rather than wading through the cultists awash in a sea of blood, as he was wont to do before. The powersword stayed in its sheath more, although he seems strangely attached to the very obvious weapon.  
  
I believe that, in killing Eisenhorn, he had exorcised a demon that had threatened to drag him screaming into the depths of insanity.  
  
When Eisenhorn and I stumbled upon one another, I was loath to bring Gorsch in, and disrupt what I had built, but I had no choice.  
  
Despite overwhelming numbers and the sight of his most mortal, or as it seemed, immortal enemy, Gorsch and his retinue obliterated the guard forces.  
  
When I returned, Gorsch was unharmed, but unconscious. When he came round, I looked into his eyes.  
  
They say that the eyes are a window to the soul. If this is true, I hope never to meet Gorsch's soul in the next life.  
  
This was not the Gorsch I had carefully cultured; this was the old Gorsch, back with a vengeance.  
  
There was nothing I could do; as he threw me out of his room I wondered what choices were left open to me. Gorsch is a very competent inquisitor, when he remains un-angered, but when he has a grudge this strong, a hate so all consuming, he is single minded and unforgiving to the extreme.  
  
Gorsch's past remains a locked door to me, a most unusual experience. Perhaps what lies behind it will give me some clue as to how to stop Gorsch's sanity being scoured away under the sun of his hate.  
  
I remain your obedient servant,  
  
Inquisitor Caran. 


End file.
